imperialism
Michael Barker: “Of central importance is that the ongoing battle against capitalism and imperialism is waged internationally”
Michael Barker. DR.
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: In your opinion, why was Jeremy Corbyn ousted as leader of the Labour Party? Don’t you think that Jeremy Corbyn has paid the price of being a supporter of the Palestinian cause and an anti-Zionist?
Michael Barker: Right until the moment that Corbyn took the mistaken position of volunteering to leave his position as Labour leader he still had the support of the vast majority of his party’s active socialist membership. So, although it is true that he came under immense pressure to resign throughout the duration of his time as Labour leader from the vast majority of his Parliamentary colleagues, it is not strictly true that he was ousted. Corbyn and his parliamentary supporters however failed to seriously encourage the types of actions that would have enabled ordinary Labour members to assert any form of democratic control over Corbyn’s opponents, who to this day still maintain their elected positions within the Parliamentary Labour Party. Lire la suite »
Dr. Immanuel Ness: “Imperialist wars benefit big capitalists in the most affluent states”
Dr. Immanuel Ness. DR.
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: In your very interesting book: Choke Points: Logistics Workers Disrupting the Global Supply Chain, you argue that global capitalism is a precarious system. Can you explain why?
Dr. Immanuel Ness: The global economy is increasingly integrated in the production industry and as such, individual nations are highly integrated for inputs which are instrumental in transforming natural resources into fabricated elements in commodities. This system is highly dependent on the transportation of goods throughout the world. In this way, workers who are employed in logistics and the moving of goods are integral to the continued flow of commodities throughout the world. As goods are more and more produced for specific consumer and market demands in destination countries in the Global North, any disruption in this system scuppers the supply of goods. Logistic workers are crucial in the distribution of fabricated goods throughout the supply chain, and thus, have the potential to interrupt the delivery of commodities in various stages of production. Lire la suite »
Dr. Burkhard Luber: “We are already beyond the point of no return what the destruction of the Earth is concerned”
Dr. Burkhard Luber. DR.
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: How do you explain the rise of the far right in Europe and elsewhere in the world?
Dr. Burkhard Luber: I see three explanations: A first explanation is that many people are not capable to accept that in the modern global world an increasingly wide spectrum of different cultures, beliefs and values exists. Many people have not learned the virtue of tolerance and the importance to find joint interests with different people, cultures and countries. Persons with such limited tolerance and small understanding of other cultures are always in danger to see foreigners as a threat for their own workplace, for their culture, etc. Lire la suite »
Liz Rowley: “The progressive and peace-loving peoples of the world need to unite to defeat capitalism and imperialism”
Liz Rowley, leader of the Communist Party of Canada. DR.
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: How do you analyze the results of the recent federal elections in Canada? Did the Communist Party of Canada achieve good results?
Liz Rowley: The election results – a minority Liberal government – are a reflection of a number of different things. First, widespread fear of a Conservative government and its policies of austerity, social conservatism, and its refusal to acknowledge climate change.
In the context of a first-past-the-post electoral system the electorate is usually forced to vote against what they don’t want, as opposed to the policies and parties they do want. In the 2015 election, the Liberals promised electoral reform – proportional representation – and that helped to get them elected. However, this is one of many promises the Liberals abandoned after they were elected. Lire la suite »
Prof. Richard Wolff: “Socialism represents the critical demand to extend democracy into the economic sphere”
Prof. Richard Wolff. DR.
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You have done a very important work throughout these years and you wrote among other things this remarkable book New Departures in Marxian Theory that you co-signed with your colleague Stephen Resnick. In your opinion, is there not a need for a revolutionary interpretation of Marxism far off the beaten track?
Prof. Richard Wolff: Marx and Marxism were themselves overdetermined (in Althusser’s sense) by their social conjunctures. So too will be the next revolutionary interpretation(s) of Marxism. The current global crisis of capitalism, built on its global collapse of 2008-2009, plus the criticisms by Marxists of (1) the rise and fall of the USSR and (2) other early experiments in constructing « socialisms » will together produce those next revolutionary interpretations. On this let me direct you and your readers to two works: S. Resnick and R. Wolff, Class Theory and History: Capitalism and Communism in the USSR (Routledge, 2002) and also R. Wolff, Understanding Marxism (2019). Lire la suite »
Dr. Charles McKelvey: « Venezuela is a threat to the neocolonial world-system »
Dr. Charles McKelvey. DR.
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You have written a very relevant and important book to understand the Cuban Revolution: The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution. In the light of your book, can we say that the Cuban revolution was very important for the emancipation not only of the Cuban people but of all the peoples of Latin America?
Dr. Charles McKelvey: I consider the Cuban Revolution to be a paradigmatic Third World Revolution. It has the dual character that essentially has defined Third World movements and revolutions: (1) an anti-colonial/neocolonial revolution that seeks the liberation of the nation from foreign imperialist domination, and (2) a revolution of social liberation, seeking the transformation of capitalist economic-political-cultural institutions. Lire la suite »
Robert Bibeau: “Capitalism is war”
Robert Bibeau. DR.
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Reading your very informative and gripping book, « La démocratie aux États-Unis, les mascarades électorales » (Democracy in the United States, electoral masquerades), a question arises: is there really a democracy in the United States and what is the use of elections in the USA?
Robert Bibeau: Yes, there is a real democracy for the bourgeoisie in the United States as in all the capitalist countries of this world. There is obviously no popular-proletarian « democracy » in the United States or any other country. Do you believe that joining a bourgeois party of a multibillionaire and its relations – given its power of pressure, of its television channel and its administrative centers – is of the same « democratic » weight as the adhesion of my neighbor – a Proletarian – to a pseudo-socialist political party? There is only the bourgeois left to let it believe. American workers know it, they do not move to vote and « to use the false power of the voting pencil » nor benefit from a fanciful electoral power exclusive to the rich. Lire la suite »
